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I would not expect a major performance feature to ship on the iMacs until the new Mac Pros ship. No idea what the holdup is on the new MPs, perhaps Apple's waiting for the GPUs to be passed by new models and drop in price.

Wish the new MPs would ship. I'm waiting on prices to drop on the current gen, so I can snag one. I'm a fan of internal, inexpensive expansion.

The main thing missing on the New MP is that the CPU hasn't actually launched yet. Apple is waiting for the Ivy Bridge-EP chips, and they supposedly launch this fall - September is what I heard. Intel's launch cycles have become very skewed for the top Xeons.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

In the past, Apple has sometimes scored early access or custom chips from Intel. It would not surprise me if Apple managed a 1-month jump on the general release schedule. That could mean a shipping MP in mid-August.

Assuming we're right on more advanced iMacs being held up by Pro availability, then a mid-Aug release of better iMacs would still be in time for Back-to-School.

I think Apple only got early access once. It's not impossible - IB is just a shrink, after all - but they haven't seemed that close recently (and if that fab rumor is true, they could be gearing up for war). The delayed release is mostly for more stringent testing, and since a single-socket model would likely need less testing, it's not completely out there, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

Not really. The last version was the same size but used SATA. There is even a SATA standard for cards like that (though Apple of course rolled their own). Apple is moving to standardize on PCIe SSDs, and they're only a little ahead of everyone else - SATA is moving towards "SATA Express", which is really just PCIe but over a regular cable so the drive can be place in a drive cage like now.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

There's no compelling reason for Apple to upgrade iMacs to Haswell over Ivy Bridge- the architectural change is mostly for battery life, and the new video chipsets. If Apple retains discrete graphics, then there's NO reason at all, really.

It runs cooler, which never hurts in a design like the iMac. It also brings a few fancy instruction sets that Apple might want to use and the chipset is improved, but mostly I think it will get updated whenever Apple updates the iMac to include new GPUs, new blade SSDs and new WiFi standards.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

It runs cooler, which never hurts in a design like the iMac. It also brings a few fancy instruction sets that Apple might want to use and the chipset is improved, but mostly I think it will get updated whenever Apple updates the iMac to include new GPUs, new blade SSDs and new WiFi standards.

Yeah, agreed, but its not a compelling reason on its own to upgrade. The new WiFi and PCI-E SSDs are better reasons.

I haven't seen any leaks of new iMac performance, though, and it's last in a pipeline as well: I think the MBP is higher priority than the iMac, and I'm sure they both require Mavericks. We don't have a release date for that yet.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

CPU is one notch up, nothing strange, except I think the TDP might have dropped on 21"ers so it might run cooler. The expected PCIe blade storage, 802.11ac Wifi as mentioned, nothing exciting.

Graphics: Low-end went GT640M to Iris Pro, which is basically sideways but a slight improvement. High 21 went from GT650M to GT750M, which is a higher clock of the same chip. Low 27 went GT 660M to GT 755M, which is also slightly higher clock of same chip. High went from 675MX to 775M, which is a chip that apparently doesn't exist. 770M is a significantly higher clocked version of the 675MX (35-40% higher core, 10% higher memory), and 775M should hopefully be even higher, at least more memory. The BTO model moved from 680MX to 780M, which is about 15% higher core clock and the same memory. All in all, the 21"ers move one step up to the old high 21" and the old low 27" respectively, the low 27" got a slight clock boost, and the higher 27" got a more significant step up.

EDIT: Forgot one point. nVidia claims that they have added "GPU Boost 2.0" to the 700M series, which means that they will more readily turbo up their clocks when needed. In effect, this serves to improve minimum framerates and playability more than the actual clocks imply, so maybe the GPU improvement is a little bit bigger. The TDP improvement is mostly on the top and on the bottom - the BTO GPU is lower TDP, so the top iMac probably won't rev the clocks quite so high when gaming. The low-end obviously loses its GPU entirely. That's 32 W right there, which should be a decent decrease. The other two models only lose a couple of watts from the integration of the VRMs, but all of them should be quieter when almost idle, as Haswell has much better powersaving modes.

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Last edited by P; Sep 24, 2013 at 10:23 AM.
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The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

CPU is one notch up, nothing strange, except I think the TDP might have dropped on 21"ers so it might run cooler. The expected PCIe blade storage, 802.11ac Wifi as mentioned, nothing exciting.

Graphics: Low-end went GT640M to Iris Pro, which is basically sideways but a slight improvement. High 21 went from GT650M to GT750M, which is a higher clock of the same chip. Low 27 went GT 660M to GT 755M, which is also slightly higher clock of same chip. High went from 675MX to 775M, which is a chip that apparently doesn't exist. 770M is a significantly higher clocked version of the 675MX (35-40% higher core, 10% higher memory), and 775M should hopefully be even higher, at least more memory. The BTO model moved from 680MX to 780M, which is about 15% higher core clock and the same memory. All in all, the 21"ers move one step up to the old high 21" and the old low 27" respectively, the low 27" got a slight clock boost, and the higher 27" got a more significant step up.

EDIT: Forgot one point. nVidia claims that they have added "GPU Boost 2.0" to the 700M series, which means that they will more readily turbo up their clocks when needed. In effect, this serves to improve minimum framerates and playability more than the actual clocks imply, so maybe the GPU improvement is a little bit bigger. The TDP improvement is mostly on the top and on the bottom - the BTO GPU is lower TDP, so the top iMac probably won't rev the clocks quite so high when gaming. The low-end obviously loses its GPU entirely. That's 32 W right there, which should be a decent decrease. The other two models only lose a couple of watts from the integration of the VRMs, but all of them should be quieter when almost idle, as Haswell has much better powersaving modes.

Thanks for the heads up. It sounds like at the high end, you may see a good GPU bump.

iFixit seems to be remarkably behind on the hardware news for a company that repairs computers. They're reviewing the bottom model with Iris Pro graphics, and they note:

The truth was alarming—the CPU is soldered in place on the logic board, and cannot be removed, replaced, or upgraded.

Yes - we know. All CPUs with Iris Pro graphics - that is, with the 128 MB eDRAM on the chip - are available only as BGA chips (soldered) rather than LGA (socketed). This was fairly major news at the Haswell launch, and the blame rests with Intel and not with Apple.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

iFixit seems to be remarkably behind on the hardware news for a company that repairs computers. They're reviewing the bottom model with Iris Pro graphics, and they note:

Yes - we know. All CPUs with Iris Pro graphics - that is, with the 128 MB eDRAM on the chip - are available only as BGA chips (soldered) rather than LGA (socketed). This was fairly major news at the Haswell launch, and the blame rests with Intel and not with Apple.

Sure, but they're making it sound like news, a drastic turn for the worse that Apple made willy-nilly. The change is because it's the only way to get that integrated GPU. Their fake outrage - because they knew that this was coming when they saw the specs - just reminds of a tabloid.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.